dew at sunrise
I can only echo the earlier reviewer (oddly, also from Hawaii, as are we): This is a superb recital. We love Sandrine's performances in several Baroque opera DVDs and on other CDs, but this CD is not only in another century, but another league. Her voice may be "light," but there are a thousand variations of that light, and she knows how to use each one for these marvellous songs.

Breathtakingly Beautiful
Sandrine Piau's new CD Evocation is as moving as it is beautiful. This is an album of songs, loosely based on the theme of womanhood, by 6 late 19th and early 20th century composers (Ernest Chausson, Richard Strauss, Claude Debussy, Alexander Zemlinsky, Charles Koechlin, & Arnold Schoenberg.

This is perhaps my favorite Piau album, which is saying a lot considering her superb Mozart, Handle, & Debussy sets. It strengthens my feeling that she is one of the greatest sopranos of this time. Though her voice is very light, she is more than capable of expressing the full range of emotions required in these songs. Her intonation is clear, pure, and even throughout its very wide range, giving her voice its beautiful ethereal quality.

Susan Manoff accompanies her on piano. Manoff's delicate playing perfectly mirrors Piau's luminous singing. Piau's beautiful voice, and Manoff's bell like piano weave together in a way that, for me, is spellbinding. In Piau's words, "This album is probably my most personal and intimate. A moving reunion with music that suffused my whole adolescence and that has never left me". In Manoff's words, "The mystery of womanhood has been the cause of innumerable texts-how to define it, how to capture it in words or music, in painting, in sculpture, how to grasp it...how to understand it?